]]>http://www.bothteamsplayedhard.net/2009/02/05/reggies-mailbag-vol-viii/feed/0The 52 Greatest NBA Moments of All-Timehttp://www.bothteamsplayedhard.net/2008/10/27/the-52-greatest-nba-moments-of-all-time/
http://www.bothteamsplayedhard.net/2008/10/27/the-52-greatest-nba-moments-of-all-time/#commentsMon, 27 Oct 2008 19:52:40 +0000http://www.bothteamsplayedhard.net/?p=689The worst part about living in New York is the utter disdain the local networks have for showing any NFL game that doesn’t involve the Giants or Jets. Now I’ll usually watch just about any game, but for more than half of the sixteen weeks each season there is no double-header on either CBS or Fox because, I presume, they want to give exclusivity to the team playing.

Yesterday, for example, Jets/KC was the only early game on and since I really didn’t feel like putting on pants and making the trek all the way to the bar that shows every game (literally two blocks away), I mopingly put the Jets game on. But it was just horrible. So I ended up flipping over to ESPN Classic and, lo and behold, there was an “NBA Scorers” marathon on, which was tremendous to watch because I really loathe preseason basketball. It was like an NBA opening day adrenaline shot in the arm.

A boring game with Iverson dropping 50-something against the Magic was first, but then came Bird’s amazing, career-high 60-point-game where he was just out-of-his-goddamn mind making every shot he took, including fadeaway continuation-after-the-foul threes while falling out of bounds that had the entire Hawks bench jumping out of their seats.

That’s one of my favorite games and it’s all the better considering the Celtics were fouling to stop the clock, up by like 15 mind you, just to get the ball back enough times for Bird to break the career Celtic high of (I think) 58 that McHale had literally set the previous week. At one point the announcer says (paraphrasing) “Isn’t it a coincidence that McHale just broke Bird’s old record last week and here Bird is tonight taking it back?”

No, sir wearing a comical sports coat, it was not a coincidence.

That’s just Larry Bird.

Anyway, the point here is that the NBA season starts tomorrow and that the Association is steaksauce.

And to commemorate the unadulterated brilliance that is the NBA, I remembered I had a list of the 52 Greatest Moments in NBA history on my computer that I wrote down a while back while watching the show of the same name that Spike TV did a bunch of years back (I presume to celebrate the League’s 52nd Anniversary).

Obviously, there have been a few moments since then that would be included (LeBron’s Game 5 most notably), but to get you excited for the upcoming year, here’s the full list:

#52 – Reggie’s push-off on Jordan to hit a three-point game winner in Game 5 of the ECF in 1998